Hey there:Sorry for the semi-late reply. Trying to wrap up my semester in Uni. As for your question, not a lot of pressure is required assuming that you keep your protective layers thin. My approach can recognize fiducials, but a bit of extra coding will be required. With that, though, you'd be able to make objects interact with the table. You want to use reacTIVision in order to deal with fiducials. Here is the source code page and documentation:http://reactivision.sourceforge.net/It also has a TUIO protocol, so you can use it in place of CCV

The Cameras are specially tailored to work in the infrared spectrum. Basically, they have a filter on the lens that prevents them from seeing any visible light. This makes them work almost like positional sensors and gets you the ability to detect touch events.

You can potentially use any VIZIO. I tend to trust them as a company generally as the tend to have longer FF cables. Their TVs are also top quality for low prices.P.S: not an informational for Vizio, just a fan:)

IR wouldn't be a problem in terms of eye safety or EM radiation exposure. You'd be good. You can use capacitive, but you'd be compromising on response time, fiducial usage, and touch-point limit. If you really want to do something for commercial, capacitive may be your best bet tho (only because of return on investment). The table I built here is for hobbyists. The gold-standard nowadays uses ir emitters and sensors in an array format to increase response. Using this guide for building a commercial system (or any on the internet right now) won't get you anywhere. I encourage you to read up on detectors and electronics systems. If you could get something made with an OLED type screen and a camera/detector array, you'd hit a gold mine. Think about it: Folding touch tables!

Yes. You can code your own apps. You can also use a laptop to do this too. Think about it as a fancier over-sized track-pad with the ability to display. That's all these tables do.

I'm hoping you got an answer to this? I've been away from this due to grad school. Trying to get back to people faster now.

So in theory, just adding a good diffuser should give you results that you're looking for. Using the endlighten gets you the same result, but now you have 2 problems: 1) The endlighten acrylic is the most expensive acrylic of all the acrylics needed for this build. Now, you're buying a second one tailored for white light.2) White light has a portion of IR. The IR from the top layer may get further diffused or attenuated by the acrylic microparticles. This could potentially cause you to get distorted blobs.Last one isn't so bad though, you could just correct for it in CCV. But in my opinion, the price throws me off. In all, the issue of seeing the insides is all eliminated by finding a good diffuser. A lot of people use either the LCD diffusers or Vellum.